German modernizers’ favourite roofs are sloped
roofs on privately owned homes and multi-family dwellings that were replaced or rehabilitated by modernizers in Germany in 2011 add up to an area equalling some 9 130 soccer fields. By comparison, only about 1 700 soccer fields worth of flat roofs were modernized during that same period. So goes one of the findings of the latest representative survey of roughly 12 000 households that Heinze Marktforschung conducted in 2012. The households in question were surveyed in writing about their modernization activities and expenditures in the year 2011. Among other things, the study investigated which measures the modernizers took with respect to roofs and which materials they used for them.
Apart from replacing or rehabilitating their roofs, private modernizers invested primarily in residential roof windows, chimneys and roof drainage. In 86 000 of their projects, Germany’s modernizers invested in solar collectors, and nearly 90 000 photovoltaic systems were installed.
All in all, those modernizers spent € 13.5 billion on roof modernization. Accounting for 42% of the overall volume, homeowners appear as the most avid renovators. Comparing the expenditure structures in eastern and western Germany, we see that lessors in the new states account for a higher percentage of overall expenditures than do those in the old states. Also, at 58% to 44%, the ratio of multi-family to single-family homes is higher in the East.
The average amount spent per modernization project comes to roughly € 9 000. Interestingly, while not quite 30% of all projects cost more than € 10 000, they nevertheless accounted for more than 80% of the market volume.
Building-trade contractors carried out 90% of the modernization measures. While roofers reaped the most benefit, other trades also shared in the profits. By the way, wages and material each account for 50% of the totals on the contractors’ invoices.
At € 13.5 billion, roof projects ranked second among the top three modernization measures. The other two were “additions and conversions” and “heating”. The study covered 15 different product divisions. In 2011, a grand total of € 112 billion was spent on modernization projects in Germany.
